Man's behavior that drives a woman crazy (7)

1.    ‘Why do men enjoy a ridiculous joke?’ [Allan & Barbara Pease, "Why Men Lie & Why Women Cry"]

 I personally don’t know how to joke well.  So, for a while, I continued to use the same joke that I learned from my friend when I was in college.  And that joke is ‘Do you want to hear short joke or long joke?’  If you say “short joke”, then I say “jok”.  If you say “long joke”, then I say “joooooke”.  I even know that this is a childish joke.  But what can I say.  This is the only joke I know.  I don’t know how to joke around.  But there are people around me who know how to joke well.  Although I cannot hear their jokes anymore, when they joked before, everyone giggled and laughed.  It seems to me that the American men like jokes.  Maybe those who are humorous are popular among the people.  I also see that when people are in difficult moments, there are few who joke and make people laugh and their face brighter.  I think this kind of humor is okay when it makes people laugh when the people are in difficulties.  But I think there are sexual jokes that men make to their female colleagues at work that make the women difficulty and to feel insulted.  Among these jokes, Allan & Barbara Pease say that there is a "joke about male genitalia" (women's humor is primarily targeted at people, human relationships, and men) (Pease).  This seems to be called "sexual harassment".  What is sexual harassment?  It is behavior characterized by the making of unwelcome and inappropriate sexual remarks or physical advances in a workplace or other professional or social situation (Internet).  Why are men doing these things without hesitation?  Why are they enjoying these sexual jokes?

 According to Allan & Barbara Pease, jokes are a very important means of communication for men.  In particular, when a man deals with emotional problems, unlike woman who expresses her emotions honestly to others in the event of a catastrophe or tragedy, he indirectly speaks about the tragic events by joking about them as he suppresses his emotions (without revealing emotions because revealing emotions are regarded as signs of his weakness) (Pease).  Given the way how the man communicates, the woman will understand a little bit why the man is joking around frequently.  Of course, the woman wants the man to share his thoughts and emotions like her.  This is especially true in the case of marital relations.  But a wise wife would be able to read her husband’s mind and laughs with him when he jokes and laughs in front her even though the situation he is going through is tearful situation (of course, a foolish wife would not understand her husband in such circumstance and despise him).  Moreover, the wise wife will comfort her husband’s heart by laughing at his joke with him.

According to Allan & Barbara Pease, ‘Laughter and tears stimulate the brain to secrete endorphins in the blood.’  This endorphin has morphine and heroin-like chemical ingredients that stabilizes the body and strengthens the body's immune system (Pease).  So when we laugh out loud we often shed tears.  We shed tears because we laugh too much.  And when we laugh so loudly that we even shed tears helps our health.  The reason is that tears accompany the secretion of enkephalin, which acts as a pain reliever to alleviate the pain of the body (Pease).  I still remember when I visited my uncle Pastor Andrew Kim who was suffering with cancer, he said ‘Endorphin came’.  I still remember I had a lot of joke with him and laughed with him in the hospital the next day after he was diagnosed with the colon cancer and it was spread over his body.  Of course, we had serious conversation too.  For example, my uncle told me about what to do with his view service, funeral service and graveyard service.  In particular, he asked me to lead the view service and asked me to comfort those who would participate in the service.  He actually gave me even the Bible verse to comfort them.  I was able to joke around with him because he was a humorous man who tried to give laughs to others.  I learned later that my uncle pastor prepared jokes before he came to our whole family New Worship gathering.  He was the "endorphin" to our whole family.  Although I don’t know how to joke, but at least until my uncle passed away I was able to joke around with him and laughed with him.  Like this, the endorphins release jokes are beneficial.  However, jokes that hurt and offend others should be avoided and discontinued.

                This is what Apostle Paul said in Colossians 4:6,” Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”  The Bible tells us to let our conversation to be always full of grace, seasoned with salt.  To do so, we must always be in God's grace.  The reason is that if we are not in God’s grace, the words that come out of our mouths will be ungrateful and ungracious.  As a result, we will not be able gracious to the person to whom we are talking.  Therefore, we must be always in the abundant grace of God.  And we must strive to be gracious to our opponent through our words.  Especially in marital relations, we should be gracious to each other especially with our words.  So when we joke, our jokes should be beneficial to each other.  In order to do that, we should know how to make jokes that releases endorphins to each other.  Especially the husband should know such a joke than his wife.  To do that, the husbands must learn jokes too.  We need to develop a sense of humor.  Of course, this is not easy for someone like me who doesn’t know how to joke.  But if we love our wives, we will try hard to do so.

 I want to learn the humor that releases the endorphin.  I would like to be a person who can make endorphin to be released so that I can make the other person to laugh and to ease his or her pain.  I want to be a person with a sense of humor who knows how to "rejoice with those who rejoice" (Rom. 12:15).  I want to make a lot of good memories with my wife so that we can laugh together.